Tag Archives: economy

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? United Police States of Corporate America says no jobs for law abiding citizens, only Prisoners need apply

According to the British International Centre of Prison Studies, the United States is truly number one, in locking up its people: As of 2009, 743 people out of every 100,000 in the U.S. were being imprisoned.  That’s far higher than so called repressive communist China at 120 per 100,000.

Why so many people being locked up in the land of the free?  It could be that Corporate America has succeed in creating a new source of cheap labor.

“…well over 600,000, and probably close to a million, inmates are working full-time in jails and prisons throughout the United States. Perhaps some of them built your desk chair: office furniture, especially in state universities and the federal government, is a major prison labor product. Inmates also take hotel reservations at corporate call centers, make body armor for the U.S. military, and manufacture prison chic fashion accessories, in addition to the iconic task of stamping license plates.”-Noah Zatz, UCLA Law School

“Although a wide variety of goods have long been produced by state and federal prisoners for the U.S. government—license plates are the classic example, with more recent contracts including everything from guided missile parts to the solar panels powering government buildings—prison labor for the private sector was legally barred for years, to avoid unfair competition with private companies. But this has changed thanks to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), its Prison Industries Act, and a little-known federal program known as PIE (the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program). While much has been written about prison labor in the past several years, these forces, which have driven its expansion, remain largely unknown. Somewhat more familiar is ALEC’s instrumental role in the explosion of the U.S. prison population in the past few decades. ALEC helped pioneer some of the toughest sentencing laws on the books today, like mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offenders, “three strikes” laws, and “truth in sentencing” laws.”-The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor, The Nation

“The growth of prison labor has directly led to the destruction of other workers’ jobs. For example, Lockhart Technologies, Inc. closed its plant in Austin, Texas, dismissing its 150 workers so that it could open shop in a state prison in Lockhart. The prisoners assemble circuit boards for industrial giants such as IBM, Compaq and Dell. Lockhart is not required to pay for health or any other benefits. The company must pay the prison the federal minimum wage for each laborer, but the inmates get to keep only 20 percent of that.”–Prison Labor on the rise in the US, wsws.org

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Moody’s official says hunker down, it’ll be a long time before we recover, government job losses alone are 50,000 per month

On September 2, PBS’s News Hour interviewed Mark Zandi, lead economist with Moody’s Analytics.  His normally optimistic tone has become quite pessimistic, in fact he’s now saying that any U.S. economic recovery will take a long time, specifically when it comes to jobs.

Regarding unemployment caused by government layoffs: “The government, state, local, federal, is now laying off about 50,000 jobs per month. So, you know, you can kind of do the arithmetic. Those are pretty significant job losses. I am hopeful that we’re seeing the worst of it right now. Many states are grappling with the end of some fiscal stimulus money.   And they need to balance their budgets, and thus the cutting at the current time. But, nonetheless, no matter how you look at it, we have got some pretty significant job cuts to come in, in the state and local sector over the next year, 18 months.”

Regarding how long unemployment will remain so high: “I mean, I think, no matter how you look at it, this is going to be a long haul. And under even the most optimistic of forecasts, and I’m among the most optimistic economists out there, it’s not going to be until 2015, 2016, maybe even 2017, before we get back to an unemployment rate that I think everyone would feel really comfortable with.”


 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? $60 billion in taxpayer money, simply disappeared in Iraq and Afghanistan, could have created at least 192,000 civilian jobs in the U.S.

The Associated Press reported on August 31, that “…$60 billion in U.S. funds has been lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade through lax oversight of contractors, poor planning and payoffs to warlords and insurgents…”

According to a 2009 update of a study by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), for every billion taxpayer dollars you spend on the military, you essentially destroy at least 3,200 civilian jobs. That’s the difference between civilian jobs created for every $1 billion in tax cuts for taxpayers, versus military jobs created for every $1 billion spent on the military.

Multiply 3,200 by the number of billions of taxpayer dollars the AP reports were wasted on the criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: That’s 192,000 civilian jobs lost.

The number of jobs lost is even higher when you look at spending on Education, instead of the Military.

For every billion taxpayer dollars spent on Education 29,100 civilian jobs are created, versus 11,600 military jobs.  The difference is 17,500.  Multiply 17,500 by the $60 billion unaccounted for taxpayer dollars lost in Iraq and Afghanistan: That’s more than one million potentially new civilian jobs lost!

Now realize the U.S. is spending tens of millions per month in Libya, and is pushing for war with Syria.  You can see there will be no economic recovery for the United States.


 

Fukushima

Government & Corporate Incompetence: More Japanese Tea contminated with Cesium!

As the nuclear disaster continues in Japan, more tea leaves have been found with extremely high levels of cesium.

The Japanese health ministry says radioactive cesium has been detected in harvested tea leaves in Chiba and Saitama prefectures, near Tokyo  (about 297km or 185 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant).

One type of tea from Chiba Prefecture contained 2,720 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram, more than 5 times the safety limit.

1,530 becquerels per kilogram was detected in three kinds of tea leaves from Saitama Prefecture.

The local governments will try to trace which tea farms the contaminated leaves came from.

Fukushima

What Economic Recovery? New Japan Prime Minister says no recovery without Fukushima

“Without the revival of Fukushima, there will be no revival of Japan.”-Noda Yoshihiko, Prime Minister of Japan

The new Japanese Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko, said there will be no recovery for Japan, without the recovery of Fukushima Prefecture.

Hello, Fukushima is contaminated with radiation! The Fukushima Daiichi nuke plant is still out of control!  Latest cesium readings show at least six towns in Fukushima Prefecture have radiation levels higher than areas around Chernobyl!

The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, Ukraine, happened in the 1980s and it still has not recovered!  I guess this means Japan is toast?

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Corporate America screws us over, again, ZERO jobs created in August 2011!!!

“The last time the government reported exactly zero jobs added in a month was in February 1945.”-CNN

“We expected a weak report, and what we got was even weaker…” and  “It’s still a skunk and it still stinks.”-Patrick O’Keefe, economic researcher at J.H. Cohn

The United States Department of Labor says Corporate America has let the country down again, zero jobs created in the month of August!!!

President Obama said his advisers expect the official unemployment rate to stay well above 6% until 2017!!!

When you factor out the 45,000 striking Verizon workers, and the temporarily laid off 22,000 state workers in Minnesota, the jobs creation numbers for August are a piddly 23,000.  Remember, most economists say at least 150,000 new jobs MUST be created every month, and that is not happening.  A more recent study by the Economic Policy Institute says 400,000 new jobs must be created every month!!!

This crappy August jobs report surprised the hell out of many economists.  CNN asked 22 economist what they thought the jobs creation number for August would be.  They thought at least 75,000 new jobs would be created, not ZERO!!!

It’s time they start calling this possible double dip recession what it really is, a depression!  I guess if  you look at it optimistically, the job numbers could have been worse, they could have gone negative!  So much for being optimistic!

 

Fukushima

Typhoon Talas hitting Japan with heavy rain, warnings issued, school hit by landslide

Typhoon Talas is coming ashore between Shikoku and Hiroshima.  Heavy rain, flooding and landslides being reported from Tokyo area, and several hundreds of miles north east to the island of Hokkaido.

Rain warnings for the hardest hit areas: Tokai (Nagoya) and Kinki (Osaka, Kobe, & Kyoto), may get drenched with 800mm (31 inches) of rain in the next 24 hours!!!

Landislide warnings for the following prefectures:  Tokushima, Wakayama, Nara, Mie, Shizuoka, Yamanashi, Saitama, Gunma, Tochigi, Iwate and Hokkaido.

There are reports that a school in Nabari, Mie, has been hit by a landslide.

Wind damage to buildings in Kobe, Osaka and Wakayama.

Air travel canceled, some roads closed.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Global Economic War: China slashes U.S. Agriculture imports

“A seasonal drop in exports to China was expected…But the magnitude of the fall has been greater than anticipated.”-U.S. Department of Agriculture

According to a September 1 report by Agrimoney, China has slashed its purchasing of U.S. farm products.  Not by a little, by a whole lot.

Up until three months ago China was spending a monthly average of $2.5 billion, yes, $2.5 billion per month.  But starting three months ago China slashed it to $800 million per month.

Historically the United States has been the biggest supplier of farm products to China, but, if current sales continue the U.S. will end the year tied with Canada.

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Corporate America says ‘If you’re unemployed don’t bother applying’, some States pass laws making it illegal for Corporate America to discriminate aginst the unemployed

“But we have seen instances in which employers are explicitly saying we don’t want to take a look at folks who’ve been unemployed. Well, that makes absolutely no sense, and I know there’s legislation that I’m supportive of that says you cannot discriminate against folks because they’ve been unemployed, particularly when you’ve seen so many folks who, through no fault of their own, ended up being laid off because of the difficulty of this recession.”-Barack Obama, President of the United States

What irony, Corporate America are deliberately discriminating against unemployed people.  Many want adds state “Must be currently employed”!

How’s that going to turn around the economy?  More proof the economic depression/recession is the fault of Corporate America!

A couple of months ago the National Employment Law Project found 150 online job adds that specifically discriminated against unemployed people.  Those discriminatory employers included Universities!

Some states, like New Jersey, are fighting back by making it illegal to require job applicants to be already employed.  The U.S. Congress is considering a bill that would do the same: Fair Employment Opportunity Act 2011, HR 2501.

Even Monster.com is being sued for posting help wanted adds that require current employment.  Monster.com says they’re just the messenger.

Fukushima

Pacific Ring of Fire: Japanese University says big quakes are coming for Tokyo

“If there is drastic plate movement, there is no guarantee that the scale of the quake will be in line with the government’s prediction of up to magnitude 7.3.”-Hirata Naoshi, Earthquake Research Committee

The University of Tokyo’s Earthquake Research Institute believes that major earthquakes are in the near future for Tokyo city, and Ibaraki Prefecture, no thanks to the 11 March 2011 9.0 quake.

Even though the 11 March earthquake was at least a hundred miles north of Tokyo, it was so powerful that the tectonic plate under Tokyo has changed so dramatically, that scientists think a massive quake caused by action on two or more areas of the plate is highly likely.  Since 11 March, the number of Tokyo quakes of magnitude 3 or greater has increased by fourfold.

Tokyo is subject to earthquakes that are located along plate boundaries, as well as quakes that happen along fault lines within a single plate.

Ibaraki Prefecture, just south of Fukushima Prefecture, is even worse off.  Since 11 March, quakes of magnitude 3 or greater have increased by 20 times!

The high tectonic activity is on the coastline, inland quake activity has not increased, but it has changed.

Japanese scientists say that recent inland quakes are much more shallower that past earthquakes.